


I Think That I was Made for You (and you were made for me)

by WishingStar



Series: Flare [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (for real this time), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, that's a new one, well I think it's cute anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 16:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13639908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishingStar/pseuds/WishingStar
Summary: Bucky makes a show of sighing and rolling his eyes, despite an inward surge of gratitude. "It's not my fault," he recites dutifully. "And even if it was, there's no sense dwelling on what's past. And, um, nothing else in our life is normal, anyway, why should this be. And... you don't wish I'd behaved differently because then I wouldn't beme. Should I keep going?"Steve smirks. "Give me one more."





	I Think That I was Made for You (and you were made for me)

**Author's Note:**

> This was closer to done than I realized.
> 
> Title for this one is from Gordon Lightfoot's "Beautiful."

"—I'm not saying it can't work," Steve insists. He pulls off the black undershirt he wears beneath his Captain suit (not the Cap suit, that one's blue and apparently Steve feels very strongly about keeping them separate), balls it up, and tosses it into the hamper. "I just don't think it _will_ work."

"Look, I know you're happy to be back on speaking terms with Stark. But his love life is none of your business," Bucky reminds him, still working on the buckles of his own suit. They've crusted over with dried blood again. He should've undressed outside the bedroom, but screw it, Steve's in the bedroom.

"In a way it is, though." Steve sits on the bed in his underwear. Bucky would make him shower first, but Steve's been through the wringer these past few days. Routine-sounding chatter about a terrorist plot had turned into an ambush targeting Steve specifically, and he'd avoided capture by the skin of his teeth. Then he'd spent the next forty-six hours (not that Bucky counted) on the run, pursuit hot on his heels, before he managed to get a distress call out and stay in one place long enough for the team to find him. Even then, the AIM cell got to him first, and things might have gone very wrong if not for the sudden arrival of the cavalry: Tony Stark and a small army of suits.

Steve has chattered all the way home, fueled by a combination of leftover adrenaline and excitement at the unexpected (and unexpectedly cordial) reunion with his old friend. He's going to run face-first into the metaphorical wall any second now. Bucky has a countdown going.

"It affects all his relationships. He's a different person with Pepper around. A better person, in a lot of ways, so I should be happy they're back together, but... it's not sustainable. He needs to find someone sustainable. "

"He needs to bond," Bucky amends. Steve might have meant the same thing, but then again, maybe not. Steve and Bucky don't have a bond, but they're sustainable. Bucky hopes. Eighteen months and going strong, anyway. The sex isn't quite what it used to be, but they're getting there. And Steve seems comfortable letting Bucky out of his sight, nowadays, which wasn't the case for a while.

They're getting there.

"That could help." Steve nods pensively, as Bucky scrambles to remember their topic of conversation. Stark, right.

"He and Pepper tried to foster once already," Steve continues, "and they gave up. Now he thinks he didn't try hard enough, but I'm worried they're just not compatible enough."

"Or Stark doesn't have the patience to foster a bond, period."

"Right. Not everyone does."

They both fall silent. Steve would deny it if asked, but Bucky's confident they're both thinking along the same lines. If anyone was cut out for a flare—a new partner, a sudden passion, your life changed in the blink of an eye—it would be an impetuous playboy like Stark. And if anyone could have fostered like a champ—patiently weaving together the edges of two souls till the souls themselves could no longer remember where one ended and the other began—it would've been Steve, who kept a place open for Bucky's soul through seventy years of war and ice and death and even Bucky himself trying to keep them apart. If Steve and Bucky hadn't flared, and they'd been born in a century where such things were permitted, Bucky bets they would have fostered instead. Steve would've dragged him through all the exercises, staring into each other's eyes while trading deepest secrets and all that jazz, and one morning they'd've woken up to realize they'd been bonded since who-knows-when and it came on so gradually, they hadn't realized. At least, Bucky's heard that's how it sometimes happens.

Instead, Steve got a flare and Bucky screwed it up, and meanwhile Tony Stark is screwing up fostering. Life's a bitch sometimes.

"Still," Steve says, "I hope we're wrong, and it does work out. They're both good people. They deserve a second chance, if anyone does."

Bucky drops the last of his gear into a heap on the floor and stares at it. Does Steve realize what he's just implied? Or is there simply no way for Bucky to talk about soul-bonds anymore without hearing an implicit condemnation?

"Hey. _Hey._ " Steve snatches Bucky's left wrist and yanks hard, tumbling him to the bed. They end up side-by-side on the mattress, facing each other, Steve's arm pinning Bucky down. "What did I say?" Steve challenges.

Bucky makes a show of sighing and rolling his eyes, despite an inward surge of gratitude. "It's not my fault," he recites dutifully. "And even if it was, there's no sense dwelling on what's past. And, um, nothing else in our life is normal, anyway, why should this be. And... you don't wish I'd behaved differently because then I wouldn't be _me_. Should I keep going?"

Steve smirks. "Give me one more."

"One more, okay." Bucky thinks for a moment, but no other arguments made in Steve's voice come to mind. Instead, he takes Steve's left hand in his right and laces their fingers together, then presses the back of his own hand to Steve's lips. He wonders if Steve has even noticed how frequently they end up in this position, especially when Steve is asking for something.

Steve huffs and bites Bucky's middle knuckle. "Smartass," he grumbles. So he has noticed.

Bucky wonders if he's also noticed how often the gesture leads to sex—make-up sex if they've had a fight; here's-how-much-I-love-you sex if Bucky's spiraled in a self-recriminatory mood, like tonight; hell, half the time it's just a transparent attempt for Steve to get him in a more receptive mood while they discuss some idiot plan he knows Bucky will never condone. At any rate, Bucky's heart speeds up like one of Pavlov's dogs at the feel of Steve's lips dragging over his knuckles. They've got some serious thank-God-we're-alive sex owed to them, and Bucky intends to cash in... in the morning, though. Once they've both had some rest. Steve isn't the only one who hasn't slept in about three days.

As if on cue, Steve's eyes go unfocused and his head, where it's propped on his hand, droop a little. Bucky hides a smile. _Three... two..._

Steve's face splits into a massive yawn.

 _Get the light,_ Bucky tries to say, but the words get hijacked into a loud sympathetic yawn of his own.

Steve clicks off the bedside lamp anyway. In the second or two it takes Bucky's vision to adjust, he feels the bed dip as Steve rolls over to throw an arm across him. Then a sloppy kiss lands on his shoulder, where the metal meets flesh. Then another. Bucky has the sensation of swimming against a current, torn between responding and letting sleep take him.

Steve runs a hand down the length of his torso.

"Hey, buddy," Bucky murmurs, trying to drift with the current and ignore the trail of heat Steve's hand leaves behind. "Whatcha doing?"

Steve raises his head. "What'm I doing?" he repeats. He's clearly aiming for affront, but the faint slur in his words ruins the effect. "I think I'm offended."

"What? No. Trust me, pal, you are way too tired to take offense."

"Hmm. Maybe." Steve more or less face-plants into Bucky's chest. A second later he's peppering it with kisses again. "Not too tired for everything, though."

Bucky shoves him gently. "Steve. Knock it off. You're gonna fall asleep in the middle of the action, and I'm not into that."

"Y're into me, though. You liked it when I broke out of those cuffs today. You got that look on your face."

"What look?"

"You have a look. It's your _I'm gonna jump him soon 's we get home_ look."

"I don't have a look."

"You do."

"What's it look like, then?"

"I don't know, I can't do it justice. But I saw it during the fight today."

"I wore a mask the whole time, dummy."

"Whatever. You wanted me, and you want me now." Steve pauses, as though gathering himself for a considerable effort, and plants a kiss directly on Bucky's lips. Then his head hits the edge of Bucky's pillow.

"Tell you what, Buck," he yawns again. "I'll just lie here, an' you can do whatever you want. Blank check. C'nsider it a thank-you for saving my life today."

Bucky shifts onto his left side, to pull him closer. "I think I'd rather not consider it in those terms," he says, "since it wasn't me who did most of the saving."

"You did, though. You took out those guys on the top floor. I'd no idea they were there till I heard the shots."

"Oh." Something cold contracts in Bucky's gut as he remembers the five AIM snipers he took out, one at a time, through the windows. He'd assumed Steve had clocked them. It doesn't matter now, he tells himself firmly. Steve is here; Steve is fine, warm and alive in his arms. He grasps for a lighthearted response.

"Well, for not knowing they were there, you did a great job keeping out of their lines of sight. Scott asked me later if you had eyes in the back of your head."

Steve... it's not that he tenses, exactly, but something about him _jolts._ It's hard to pinpoint.

"What?"

"Oh." Steve pauses, then squeezes the arm Bucky's wrapped around him. "Nothing. Not a big deal."

This used to be his tell for swallowing the words _do you remember_ , back when the answer was more often no than yes and Bucky would get frustrated by the question. Bucky hasn't seen this tell in months. Steve has basically trained the phrase out of his vocabulary, though not before Bucky learned that it never paid to follow up on _not a big deal_.

"Anyway, I told him we both did, from the serum. From the look on his face, he bought it." Bucky frowns. "Maybe I should let him know I was joking, before he hatches a play that depends on it."

Steve blinks up at him, face barely visible in the darkness but projecting a strange mixture of contemplation and... hope, maybe?... all the same. Bucky opens his mouth to ask teasingly what's got him thinking so loud. Before he can speak, Steve pulls his head down into a kiss.

Okay, maybe some heavy petting isn't totally uncalled-for. Since Bucky saved Steve's life today, and all.

It peters out after a few minutes, because they really are both exhausted. Steve sighs and rolls over, then wiggles his shoulders in the patented Steve Rogers shorthand for _get over here and spoon me_. Bucky obliges, burying his face into the back of Steve's neck. Steve's breathing evens out in record time.

"Hey, Steve," Bucky whispers. Doesn't want to wake him, just test whether he's really asleep already. He doesn't even know what he'll say if Steve responds. Probably tell him he loves him, or something equally touchy-feely. Couples are supposed to do that, he's heard, when they aren't soulmates—reassure each other verbally, since they can't just sense it. Mostly it's recommended in articles with names like _Ten Ways to Foster a Soulbond in a Year or Less_ , right alongside the one about staring into your partner's eyes. But Bucky figures the principle holds in their case, too. 

Steve gives a tiny sigh.

"You with me?"

"Mmm." Steve burrows deeper into the pocket made by the mattress, the blankets, and Bucky. "Love you too, Buck," he mumbles into his pillow, the words muffled beyond recognition.

There's something odd about the way he's said it, Bucky thinks muzzily. He'll figure it out in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand, that's a wrap. Thanks for sticking with my bumbling through my first-ever long series, guys. I hope you enjoyed the ride.
> 
> (I tried to make it obvious without spelling it all out explicitly, but just in case I missed the mark again... YES they are totally fostering a new bond; Bucky doesn't realize it yet but he will soon, and Steve at least suspects.)


End file.
